​​​AUSTIN – While the growing Austin economy drives business for some sectors, others are being left behind. Case in point, it can be downright brutal to be a home-flipper.

Due to a booming residential real estate market and extremely low inventory levels, Austin has one of the lowest rates of house-flipping in the nation at 3.4 percent.

Austin's low home-flipping rate bucks a national trend: A combination of rising home prices and a stronger labor market have helped push home-flipping numbers to their highest levels in a decade.

About 6 percent of all home sales in 2016 qualified as a "flip”, defined as the purchase of a house at a market rare and the subsequent sale of the same property at a higher price due to improvements or short-term pricing gains. ​

This graphic excludes Austin, where home sales have continued at a torrid pace for much of the last decade.

A lack of supply makes it extremely difficult to find underpriced homes and turn them into profitable investments.

The median sale price of a single-family home in the metro jumped 7 percent in 2016 while inventory sat at an unbalanced two months in December.

2016's flip ratio was the highest on record since 2006, when home prices reached peak levels in many U.S. metros and when 7.3 percent of all sales qualified as flips.​